1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to clip-on lens assemblies for eyewear and more particularly, to clip-on sunglasses for use with any type of eyewear, including rimless and rimmed eyewear.
2. Background of the Related Art
Auxiliary lenses for eyewear are well-known in the art. They come in a variety of configurations to attach to various styles of eyewear for a variety of purposes. Some are merely sunshades while others include corrective or supplementary optics. All of these lens assemblies, though, include some means or structure to hold the assembly to the eyewear. The most common implementation of these assemblies includes hooks that are typically located on the outer edges of the lens assembly and are hooked on the outer edges of the eyewear frame. A spring biasing mechanism draws the lenses together, and thereby draws the hooks against the outer edges of the eyewear frame, to retain the assembly onto the eyewear.
These older spring-biasing mechanisms are, relatively speaking, typically bulky. The bulkiness of the spring-bias mechanism does not present a problem for the average pair of eyewear that has a wire or plastic frame because the spring-bias mechanism will visually blend with the frame. These frames also frequently have brow bars extending across the top of the lenses and frame, which provide another point at which the spring-bias mechanism can be hidden to make the visual appearance of the clip-on lens assembly mounted on the eyewear more aesthetically pleasing.
The advent of rimless eyewear presents a different situation, however. Referring to FIG. 1, a typical pair of ordinary rimless eyewear is shown generally at 10. Rimless eyewear 10, as its name implies, lacks a frame. Instead, the lenses 12 are held together by a thin wire or plastic nose bridge portion 14 that is often riveted 16 to the lenses 18 themselves. The temple bars 20 are also attached directly to the outer edges of the lenses 16 in a similar manner as the nose bridge portion 14 is attached. Because the rimless eyewear 10 lacks a frame and often has a thin nose bridge portion 14, the clip-on lens assemblies of the prior art suffer from the disadvantage of not being able to present an aesthetic appearance while mounted on the eyewear 10.
In the eyewear industry, style and appearance are highly desirable traits for eyewear and are often the driving factor in a successful product. Therefore, there is a need for a clip-on lens assembly that, while mounted on a pair of eyewear, presents a more aesthetic appearance by minimizing or blending the visual appearance of the structures used to retain the clip-op lens assembly to the eyewear while still securely attaching the clip-on to the eyewear.